The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-08-07
OF INTEREST TO WOMEN.
Agriculture as Feminine Pursuit-Another
Dress Reformer in the Field.
Women Who Farm.

physique. retiring and ladylike creature,
whom would have expected to turn out a
school mistress. I heard the other day that in
the years since paths parted and lost sight
of her she has become successful farmer. She
was her fathers pride, aud very possibly ne may
have pinched himself when he sent her to col
lege At any rate. when he died. soon after her
graduation, he left large farm considerably in
numbered and one son too young to take his
place its manager. She equal to the
emergency, and has been running things ever
since with eminent success She raises good
many hops and has to deal with pretty rough
lot of people at picking time, but manages them
famously. 1t is curious instance of the sur
vival of ancient superstions that the neigh nors,
| who like and respect her, generally think
it little too bad of her that she
doesn't send her brother, grown quite
| a big boy. to pay the taxes. but goes
| herself lust like man" somewhat similar
case is that OF young woman of Nyack. N. Y,
whose father died. leaving to her about hun
dred acres of rough billy land Her neighbors
| advised her to sell it for song and live on the
| proceeds while she learned type writing or &C.
| quired distinctivey feminine means of
| support. Instead. she stayed at home and
| planted blackberries AS as the bushes
| got big enough to bear she began making money,
since. She has added strawberries and cur
| rants to her blackberries. and they do equally
WELL Mrs. M. Louise Thomas. President of
Sorosis, herself a successful farmer at one time
told about two Philadelphia teachers
who. after teaching dozen years so. resolved
| to break tho chains OF their thralldom and with
their small savings purchased farm and went
to raising hens. They doing nicely and
making plenty of money. Instances like these
| in all parts of the country seem to indicate
| that women invading agriculture as they
| have invaded nearly all other imaginable pro-
| LESSONS.
| Of course women have always worked upon
| the farm, getting np at o'clock in the morning
| to cook breakfast before the are up, doing
the breakfast Dishes cooking dinner, doing the
| dinner dishes, ironing sweeping, cooking
supper. doing the supper dishes, and sitting up
till midnight to wrestle with the heaped ND
mendine basketball this women have been do
ing on the farm right along and no one has
denied them the right. But here's an alarming
innovation, for women becoming in
large numbers farm managers and owners, and
doing precisely as well in this most ambitious
undertaking as the men. There is always this
difference between working and
working man things go now. If the woman
works for wages she will get less than the man
for the some service If she is her own boss
she is subject only the natural restrictions of
competition. and can do, with equal ability and
capital. precisely well the man. One of
the biggest retail clothing stores about New
York is owned and to advantage by
woman. If she were working tailor and made
mems coats she would barely escape starvation
It's very good thing, then, for woman to
manage her own business and stand equal
chance IN the worlds competition instead of
fQk i'm vua A6o TorH1f 10
in some one of whose many branches it is very
easy for a woman to m anage business of her
own.
1t is in the West that cases OF this sort are
most frequent The woman farmers of Nebras-
IA planted $4,000 trees last year. Women
ranchers are numerous enough ID air the newer |
States and Territories. In California the Pacific
coast branch of the Collegiate Alumnae Associa-
ton, intent exact figures usual has coll
lected some statistics of woman's work in agri-
culture. The results are remarkable and a
paper partially embracing them has been printed
in the Overland Monthly. and attracted there
much attention. In the Golden State the
age size of all farms is 462 acres; the average
size of the farms managed by is 489
acres. great many of these farms are owned
by widows continuing their husbands business,
but many more, perhaps half, were purchased
or pre-empted. The women farmers of Cali
forna seem to havo turned their attention es-
pecialiy to the production of fruit, silk honey
flowers and poultry. One women hired China
to pick the fruit from a small farm and
made money, one year 81. OOo one year So 400
at 10 per cent III to buy her farna paid for it
and won back her shattered health besides
Another advises cooperation, thinking that two
three women can do better by combining their
heads hands and money than by working alone.
One farm of 5000 is by woman.
She inherited half section, 800 acres, and has
bought all the various times. On the |
other hand many of the most successful fnan-
cially have less than 40 acres of land.
But the successful women farmers do not all |
live of the Mississippi. Some 1.-Two along |
its lower banks, like the silkworm growers of |
the Gulf States who have formed an association |
off daDfi rai "
work in the building up of comparatively new |
industry, or like that woman who was made |
member of the Sugar Planters Association the |
other day, with many compliments for her ex- |
periments and researches, or like Mrs. Sallle ID.
Echols, of jackson, Miss, who has one of the |
finest herds OF Jerseys In the South, or, ike the
hundreds and thousands of women throughout |
the South who have turned fingers unused to |
work and brains which never needed to consider |
economy the hard tasks and harder problems |
which dropped from the shoulders of husbands |
and fathers killed in the upon theirs. |
good many of them live in the East, too l |
know one woman who is one OF the most success |
full florists in the suburbs of Boston and has great
skill in coaxing fruit to grow IN winter to sell |
for fabulous prices. Since the establishment OF |
her greenhouses three men have undertaken to |
compete with her, but they do not, all together,
do a business anywhere near equal'ng hers. be- |
cause they lack the romans taste IN flowers
Another Massachusetts woman farmer OF note |
is Miss Floretta Vining of Hull. tho largest tax
payer and best farmerin the town.
One Of the biggest farms in New York is that |
of Mrs. Barnum, at Hampstead, Long Island |
Mrs. Barnum hires about fifty men most of the |
year She has some 1900 acres, believe, more |
than two square miles, of land There are hun
dreds of cattle upon it and many fine horses She |
keeps a carpenter and blacksmith on the farm |
TO attend to it's tinkering She supervlses every
thing that is done her premises. and @does it |
we'll. OF course, too, there plenty of women |
who farm for the fun of it, like Rose Coghlan at |
Yonkers, like Mrs Viii they the fame OF |
whose success poultry raiser at Grasslands |
has become national But there plenty of |
women farmers dependent upon the land for |
livelihood without referring Such fortunes |
favorites these. Most OF them, too, being |
women OF unusual INTEL icence-ese would they, |
perhaps. be starving the slim ceeds of |
fancy" work. with no fancy in it. trying |
to walk in of the well urodden con- |
ventional ruts in which women travellers form |
such u packed procession that, poor creatures, |
they don't give another room to stand |